Payne-Phalen resident's public art runs afoul of St. Paul City Hall

Arjo Adams' house and his "People's Park," the neighboring folk-art sculpture garden, have been condemned. The city-owned lot next to his home has been transferred to St. Paul Parks and Recreation, which plans to use the lot as a buffer to a bike path and the East Side Heritage Park. (Pioneer Press: Jean Pieri)

Depending upon how you look at it, Ronald J. "Arjo" Adams has built a public park in St. Paul's Payne-Phalen neighborhood -- or a public nuisance on public land, without the blessing of public policymakers.

After 10 years of sculpting and weeding the city-owned lot next to his Wells Street home, the North Dakota transplant and his folk art "People's Park" are on a collision course with city council.

"Anybody that comes by, I tell them you can do anything you want there as long as it ain't illegal or immoral," Adams said Thursday as he contemplated the parcel strewn with art objects.

"The legalities we can judge from the law, but the morality has to come from inside you. ... They say, 'Hey, is this your yard?' I say no, 'It's your yard.' "

His sculpture garden is part protest, part public art exhibit, he said.

Using as a backdrop an elaborate retaining wall built of discarded rocks and concrete, Adams began filling the lot at 680 Wells St. with concrete gargoyles, picnic tables, bed headboards, an old furnace, the rusted remains of a merry-go-round and other carefully arranged ramshackle attractions.

The effort -- lauded by some, hated by others and condemned by the city -- started nearly a decade ago, in part as a way to get back at the city for the Payne-Phalen Main Street redevelopment project.

In the late 1990s, Adams sided with public officials who wanted to raze several blocks of nearby houses to make room for a school.

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But the Johnson Achievement Plus Elementary grounds took up far less land than he expected, and he now believes he was duped into supporting the effort to displace lower-income homeowners and gentrify the neighborhood overlooking Swede Hollow and downtown St. Paul.

When the city told him his property needed a new retaining wall, Adams built his own -- and kept adding to it.

By October 2006, the vacant city-owned lot next to his house at 676 Wells St. brimmed with objects, some of them huge. At the time, Adams told the Pioneer Press: "What (the city) did was legal, but it was damn immoral. It's a beautiful view (here), so they needed to get rid of the lower- and middle-income people."

His protest has never ended.

Today, some neighbors even help him weed the lot or add ornaments to his stone-lined walking path. An American flag flies from a flagpole donated by the now-closed Piccadilly's restaurant in Mahtomedi. Someone installed a tree stump, painted pink and resembling a the head of a pig.

"It's basically like an artistic landmark," said East Sider Stephanie McCorkell, who has become a booster of the park.

But others say the park, like the house next to it, is unsafe.

Soon, it might all be torn down -- the park and Adams' house included.

In August 2012, the city Department of Safety and Inspections declared 676 Wells a vacant house and condemned as a "nuisance property" to be torn down.

In June 2012, the city issued Adams an order to vacate, listing 46 deficiencies, including a broken furnace, off-code handrails and exposed wiring.

More recently, the city Housing and Redevelopment Authority transferred title of the lot where Adams' park sits to the Parks and Recreation Department. The goal was to have the lot serve as an adjoining buffer to the East Side Heritage Park. A bike path would run from Aguirre Street, just behind the property, to the Bruce Vento Trail parallel to Phalen Boulevard.

The prospect of having the path run along the stacks of rock and concrete in Adams' block-long retaining wall -- which Adams started some 25 years ago -- has given city officials pause.

"I've been lobbying for them to get a bike path down here," Adams said. "I just didn't know by getting a bike path, they were going to figure out how to take out my wall, my art park and my house."

Adams said city-owned vacant lots ring his property, and the city is simply looking to add to its holdings, or at least obtain the two parking spaces on a granite foundation nearby.

"The city owns a 25-foot lot on one side of me, they have a 25-foot lot on the other side of me, but they don't have enough to build," said Adams, who has built a stone fountain that flows water into a small pond on the city land to his west.

City officials say they have a duty to uphold public safety. A health inspection uncovered "distinct hazards" at 680 Wells, said Robert Humphrey, a spokesman for the Department of Safety and Inspections.

Among them, "there's things like giant granite slabs held up by 2-by-4s and a rusty chain," Humphrey said.

Art fashioned from a furnace, said Humphrey, leans against the unstable retaining wall. Heavy objects hang in the trees. A railing made of headboards is anything but safe, he said.

"Nothing there was built with any city permitting," Humphrey said.

Adams, who lives with a woman he refers to as his sister and a rotation of roommates, has appealed an order to address the problems at 676 Wells, setting him on a likely path toward a hearing before the city council.

"There's some problems, alright," said Adams, who called the city's case overstated. "We need to (fix) the basement bathrooms and revent them and redo them. Not one individual that has ever been through here would say this is condemnable, by any means."

First, his supporters, and possibly some critics, will attend a public meeting Aug. 7 at the St. Paul Police Eastern District, 722 Payne Ave.

The meeting is being conducted with the Parks and Recreation Department and the Payne-Phalen District 5 Planning Council. Leslie McMurray, director of the planning council, said District 5 has not decided whether to support the park.

Adams is scheduled to meet Aug. 27 with the city's legislative hearing officer, Marcia Moermond. An appeal hearing before the city council is tentatively scheduled for Sept. 18.

At City Hall, many officials have privately opposed the park but are cautious about commenting publicly before the final appeal hearing.

"They're having some hearings on it, and I'm going to let it play out," said city council member Dan Bostrom, who represents the neighborhood.

Bostrom said he's received comments from residents for and against the park.

"I don't want to make any preconceived judgments on the whole deal," he said.

Supporters of the People's Park aren't taking the city condemnation action sitting down. McCorkell, a member of the District 5 Planning Council, started a Facebook page for the People's Park and a petition at Change.org, complete with a YouTube video interview of Adams and tour of his park.

"There must be a way to preserve the spirit of Arjo's project while addressing safety or liability concerns," writes McCorkell, on the Change.org site.

"We believe that the city could work to find a compromise that reduces liability but retains what some find to be a unique artistic landmark in the neighborhood, and we believe the community deserves time for the fans of this landmark artistic installation to be heard."

City officials have said many of the 200 or more signatures on the Change.org petition come from out-of-state and have little weight in determining whether the park is a safety hazard.

John Vaughn, executive director of the East Side Neighborhood Development Company, said his organization is working with the city and Dayton's Bluff Neighborhood Housing Services to build seven new homes across the street from the sculpture park, on Wells Street between Greenbrier and Payne.

"I think it's good for our houses, I think it's good for the neighborhood," said Vaughn, who hopes to recruit a nonprofit steward to officially take over the park. "But if you're squatting, you've got to be prepared for it to end."